"Woo-woof!!"
The Canyne's anxious barking rang out again. Falcon frowned; before he could turn to check, his body dove forward.
A ball of fire exploded in an instant. Sparks landed on his back. Although his armor offered protection, the heat still made Falcon feel a sudden burn across his back.
He hurried to his feet, just in time to see a sweep of blade-light arc round and hack into the wounded Nargacuga.
Flesh and blood splattered as the Nargacuga was cleaved away by that tremendous force.
Glavenus twisted its head toward Falcon and the wary Canyne and let out a threatening roar.
"What's going on?"
Falcon felt something was off. Deep in the Ancient Forest there were indeed all kinds of powerful monsters. The closer one got to the Ancient Tree, the more numerous and the stronger they were—but it shouldn't have been possible to run into both a Nargacuga and a Glavenus at the same spot like this.
The route from Astera to the Ancient Tree, as well as the locations of the camps, had all been strictly planned. Every stretch of road had gone through all kinds of surveys—not only to ensure safety, but also to make sure one wouldn't encounter too many monsters along the way.
Even if they ran into something they couldn't bypass, there would usually be a full team of hunters going on ahead to drive the monster away.
So, a Nargacuga showing up here was already a bit unusual. The forest was so big that you could still explain it away as a coincidence, but then what was with this Glavenus?
"Roar!"
Seeing that Falcon had no intention of retreating at its roar, the irritable Glavenus lost patience and launched the attack first.
Just as Falcon took a deep breath and prepared for a second bout, there came the rapid rustling of grass being shoved aside.
A heartbeat later, a burly figure landed in front of Falcon mid-leap, a massive shield planted before him.
The tail blade scraped across the shield with an ear-piercing screech, leaving only a shallow mark. The shield-bearer didn't even give half a step.
Before the Glavenus's attack had fully ended, the lance thrust out. With a dull thud, it punched straight through the scales on the Glavenus's thick thigh, leaving a bleeding hole.
Howling in pain, the Glavenus staggered a few steps to the side, its thigh trembling slightly from the hurt.
Unwilling, it glanced at the Admiral and Falcon, then, after an angry bellow, it actually turned without looking back, dragging its scar-covered body as it lurched deeper into the forest.
At the same time, the Nargacuga that had just been struck by the Glavenus also recovered. The crimson in its eyes faded; with reason returning, it vaulted a few times and likewise vanished into the depths of the forest.
"Phew~"
Letting out a slow breath, the Admiral put away his weapon, looked at Falcon—who had slung the Long Sword back over his shoulder—and patted the other's shoulder in praise with his broad palm.
"Not bad just now. You've basically mastered the Long Sword!"
The Admiral had already arrived while Falcon was fighting the Nargacuga. He had taught him before and even hunted together with him, so the Admiral knew Falcon's strength very well. And that Nargacuga had multiple wounds on its body; it was obvious it was fighting Falcon while still dragging an unhealed injury. Under those conditions, even though Falcon was using a Long Sword rather than the Dual Blades he was more proficient with, there wouldn't be a problem.
Falcon didn't respond. His Spirit Helm Breaker had whiffed—and the Admiral had seen it. His head was filled with shame at this moment.
'If that strike just now had been used by my teacher, it definitely wouldn't have missed!'
Falcon thought this to himself.
As someone who had been through it, the Admiral naturally knew the mindset of a Long Sword user after a Spirit Helm Breaker whiffs, and he didn't keep talking.
In time, once his Spirit Helm Breakers had whiffed enough, he would get used to it.
'However, two monsters showed up in a row, and both were injured. Has something happened in the forest?'
Crouching to pick up a Glavenus scale stained with blood, the Admiral looked toward the depths of the forest.
...
These days, the Ancient Tree was lively.
Every day there were Cats climbing up and down the tree, building all kinds of basic infrastructure. Sometimes even the Jagras helping carry things would be so exhausted they collapsed on the ground, foaming at the mouth.
The first group of Cats to go out and gather resources had returned successfully. This made all the Cats of the Ancient Tree's Fire Wyvern tribe very excited—especially when they saw the pile of materials brought back. It made them even more determined to expand the resource-gathering teams.
"Next time, we can get the Jagras ready to head out with us too, meow!"
Tonkotsu dug out a clod-wrapped "ore" from the pile on the ground, hefted it, and spoke to his father.
Suddenly, his paw halted. He looked at the "ore" in his hand with some puzzlement.
He popped out his claws, quickly scraped off the surface mud, and blew hard—inside was actually metal, not the ore he had thought!
"Where did you get this from, meow?"
Steak took the metal chunk Tonkotsu handed over, a hint of confusion in his eyes as well.
"I don't know either, meow. I have no impression of this thing, meow."
"Um, I was the one who dug it up, meow." At this moment, the cat attendant with a small shovel on its back suddenly spoke.
Seeing a whole group of Cats turn to look, it offered a slightly timid explanation: "Right when we were collecting ore, I dug it out by accident, meow! Mainly the detector reacted, and I thought it was ore, so I put it in the pack, meow."
The Cats looked at each other, a little unable to make sense of it.
The detector had been purchased from the Research Commission. It could be used to detect some common metal ores—of course, already formed metal could also be detected.
Only, in the Cats' impression, before the Research Commission arrived in the New World, the Strange Mask Tribe were the only ones in the forest who possessed simple metal-smelting methods. However, because ordinary metal and wyvernbone were not far apart in hardness and toughness, even after entering a metal era, the Strange Mask Tribe did not pull too far ahead of the Grimalkynes in combat strength.
"Forget it, meow—no need to overthink it, meow. This is a good thing, meow."
Ready-made metal, though somewhat decayed, was much easier to process than ore.
After thinking it over for a moment, the leader of the Fire Wyvern Grimalkynes gave the order for the resource-gathering team to begin focusing their search on that area.
Whether this metal chunk was a coincidence would be known with a search.
If it wasn't a coincidence, then all the better—it would let the windmill and the cable car be completed faster. That was a great thing, meow!
Thus, with that in mind, the lump of metal was once again tossed back into that pile of materials.
The Cats' resource-gathering team began forming a second squad—this time also adding in domesticated Jagras.
...
At this moment, a monster 15 m in length, its whole body covered in gorgeous golden armor, with a head structure like the statue of an Egyptian pharaoh, bearing huge purple compound eyes, and three legs on each side of its body—its overall form like an orchid mantis—was walking slowly through the trees.
Strands wrapped around its tail; under the pull of the silk threads, a heap of timber, stone, and construction debris was bundled together and dragged behind it.
These things furrowed deep gouges into the ground, showing just how heavy they were, yet the Ahtal-Ka could very easily drag them as it threaded through the forest, which showed how outrageous its strength was.
Looking down from high above, one could tell from the Ahtal-Ka's path of travel that its direction this time actually coincided with the Cats' resource-gathering team's destination.
The Ahtal-Ka, with a body comparable to a small Flying Wyvern, moved recklessly through the forest, its bronze-tinged golden carapace so conspicuous among the trees, yet few monsters dared to provoke it.
After all, any monster that tried to block its path was easily struck into serious injury by the pile of "scrap iron" trailing behind it; a few unlucky ones even lost their lives.
This time, the Ahtal-Ka's goal was to head toward an ancient ruin within the Ancient Forest. While constructing its nest, it would also excavate the building materials left in those ancient ruins to fill its own citadel.
As a Ahtal-Ka that had only recently received a portion of "dowry" from its mother and begun living independently, both the strength of its body and the quality of its citadel's components were far from normal standards.
Physical strength required time and, in the future, slowly devouring male Ahtal-Kas of its own kind to enhance. But the citadel could take shape more quickly, so the Ahtal-Ka set its sights on those ancient ruin remnants buried in the sands and mud of the New World.
Yet, in the Wildspire Waste, there were few unclaimed ruins left that could be easily excavated. Unwilling to lower itself to using wood and stone to build its citadel, the Ahtal-Ka could only follow the direction pointed out by its mother, heading deep into the Ancient Forest to search.
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